📦 Amazon employees protest RTO

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Good Morning,

I was nervous going into this election cycle that remote work would become a political lightning rod. After all, it’s a topic that impacts tens of millions of people (if not more), and has the potential to create passionate arguments, despite its clear benefits.

Fortunately, it’s been out of the limelight, but in honor of election day tomorrow, here are two of the worst takes on it from either side of the aisle:

JD Vance: Vice Presidential Candidate

Vance’s take is a hollow one. Arguing that the importance of a job is correlated to office attendance?! Immediately not credible — as *most* executives in the tech world will tell you. It’s likely these social security employees were actually more productive working remotely than when commuting daily and working from an office full of distractions.

Jacob Frey: Mayor of Minneapolis

Frey later admitted he was joking and that there is no such “study,” though that wasn’t made clear in his attempted stand-up routine at a donor luncheon full of downtown business executives.

His take also mirrors that of most politicians if they ever bring up remote work. They cite lower economic activity in major city centers, and blame remote work — without citing all the benefits remote work brings to companies, families, or growing suburban communities, for example. Their solution isn’t to innovate, but rather to go back to the way things were before COVID.

Anyway — if you’re in the US, please vote if you haven’t already! And I hope you have a nice, relaxing Tuesday evening 😉

Remote Source Job Board

Featured companies:

Spring Health: 53 remote jobs
Tempus Labs: 91 remote jobs
Kaplan: 38 remote jobs

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Need to Know

📈 Remote-friendly = higher stock prices
A working paper by researchers in Australia has found that companies with more flexible work opportunities have better short- and long-term stock performance.

Previously, there had only been one popular study analyzing company performance and remote policies; it was done by the University of Pittsburgh and it found companies that required employees to return to the office had worse financial results.

This University of Melbourne study looks at performance through a different lens, and provides another blow to office enthusiasts. (Yahoo! Finance)

🇬🇧 Remote work support in the UK
Jonathan Reynolds, the UK’s Secretary of State for Business and Trade, shared his pro-remote work beliefs in a conversation about workers’ rights and future changes he expects to bring to the UK.

He said companies “need to judge people on outcomes and not a culture of presenteeism.”

Further, he said that the UK has significant regional inequality — and companies hiring employees outside of major city centers could help address that inequality.

Now we just need to get some of our own politicians in the US to publicly tout remote work benefits! (BBC)

☕️ Starbucks threatens employees over RTO
After announcing a hybrid policy for previously-remote corporate employees, Starbucks is moving “from carrots to sticks” and threatening to fire employees who don’t go along with this recent office mandate.

It’s a disappointing move from a company that made waves by hiring a CEO who is still based in Newport Beach, a thousand miles away from Starbucks’ Seattle corporate headquarters.

Ironically, when Brian Niccol was hired as CEO, employees said they didn’t care about his working arrangement — including routine use of a corporate jet — as long as he didn’t force a return to the office. (Bloomberg)

📦 Amazon employees protest RTO
The CEO of Amazon AWS (Amazon Web Services) came under fire recently for announcing the requirement to move fully back into the office — he even had the gall to say that nine out of ten colleagues he spoke with wanted that policy in place. (Where have I seen that made up clown statistic before?)

Naturally, he’s completely wrong and there are now over 500 employees who have signed an open letter tearing apart his comments and the policy itself:

The full letter, published in this Business Insider article, warns that AWS will regress if leadership enforces this policy, and urges the CEO to reconsider his decision. (Business Insider)

🌍 Europeans working American hours remotely
Some remote workers in Europe are intentionally working for US companies, working US hours along with their peers across the pond.

US salaries are typically 20-40% higher than in Europe, so it’s a tradeoff they’re willing to make.

It’s certainly not for everyone, but if employees are comfortable working at night with what’s usually a 5-6 hour time difference, then everyone wins: the employees make more money, and employers are able to access the talent they want during normal work hours. (Fortune)

Stuff We Like

🤝 Be a more productive leader
A leader of an executive search firm discusses some of the traits found in the best leaders that allow them to be as productive as possible. For starters, he suggests removing distractions from your space, and using the “Ivy Lee Method” of the to-do list to allow for better focus, where you write down the most important items you need to do at the beginning of every day. (Fast Company)

🎮 Remote gaming jobs
Tech.co rounded up dozens of open remote jobs in the gaming industry across several companies. (Tech.co)

👀 Stand out on LinkedIn
This career counselor shares tips on how to use LinkedIn most effectively to network. She says recruiters are always on the lookout for talent, so proactively seeking out recruiters and requesting to connect with them is a smart strategy that could pay off down the line. (Forbes)